Five supposed members of the hacker group Anonymous were arrested in the United Kingdom today.

Anonymous recently made available an application called LOIC to assist its members in performing internet attacks, but the program doesn't do anything to hide the users' personal information. Perhaps that's how the Scotland Yard Police Central e-Crime Unit was able to target five individuals early Thursday morning in coordinated raids throughout lower England. These five hackers, aged 15 to 26, are no longer anonymous.

"The arrests are in relation to recent and ongoing 'distributed denial of service' attacks (DDoS) by an online group calling themselves Anonymous," read a statement released by Scotland Yard about the raids.

Taking place in the jurisdictions of West Midlands, Northants, Herts, Surrey and London, each of the alleged hackers were taken to their local police precincts for questioning. The e-criminals will likely be charged under the UK's Computer Misuse Act but no formal arraignment has been made.

The hammer was bound to drop. Anonymous was born from the miasma that is the 4chan forum where users can post whatever crazy crap they can make, adapt or get their hands on. As a somewhat more militant or socio-political arm of 4chan, Anonymous became famous for its protests against Scientology and its DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks on websites from GeneSimmons.com to PayPal and Visa in support of Julian Assange's Wikileaks.

As more and more seek to join the ranks of Anonymous, not all of them will be as adept at hiding their tracks as the hackers of yore. Cyberpolice such as the Scotland Yard e-Crime Unit have also apparently stepped up their own hacking skills so what may be a game for these young men has quickly become dangerous.

Though I've never posted on 4chan it still kinda irritates me that NO ONE understands what "anonymous" is. It's not a group, or a team of hackers. It's a state of being. And not in some spiritual douchey way. It's in the way that anyone you cannot identify is considered anonymous, like the unknown author of a quote. When people call themselves anonymous, they're using it in the literal term. Of course as soon as people know who you are you loose the "prestige" of being anonymous.

OT: This is not hacking... these are just script kiddies running programs from home. Attacking major corporations without using a proxy is pretty dumb....

Not really much they can charge them with. There are so many people involved with DDoS attacks that It'd be a huge waste of resources just to track them down and charge them with something. Individually they'd have done as much damage as lending Guy Fawkes a single match. If these guys weren't tech savvy enough to disguise themselves online, you can sure as hell bet that they wouldn't be capable of doing any real damage with a computer in the first place.

Companies using such important websites for business such as eBay and Visa should invest in more stringent security measures for their websites, it shouldn't be up to the tax payer to provide the resources to track down and charge every pseudo-hacker with a seemingly minor computer crime.

Man, you'd almost think members of Anonymous thought they were immune from the law or something.

Interestingly, I know some people would go on about how there is no 'Anonymous,' and it's more a state of mind etc but it really isn't in this case. Anonymous as started by 4chan is a group, it's a group you can choose to actively participate in as often as you want, and leave anytime you want, but by doing so, for the duration of the attack you take part in, you are a member of a group identifying itself as 'Anonymous.'

Say these guys weren't really hackers, and weren't really 'part of Anonymous' but they carried out a DDOS attack, Anonymous' preferred method of assault, used software from an Anonymous user, and probably identified themselves as being part of 'Anonymous.'

I think it's dangerous to thinkn of Anonymous as not being a group nowadays, because the users of 4chan who also take part in Anonymous are identifying themselves, they have distinctive signs (The V masks) distinctive methods (DDOS attacks), and often target big companies in what can be very easily described as cyber terrorism.

This is a group, and when you choose to take part, you make yourself open to legal retribution because most of what Anonymous does, whether small or big, with good intention or not, is illegal.

Braedan:Though I've never posted on 4chan it still kinda irritates me that NO ONE understands what "anonymous" is. It's not a group, or a team of hackers. It's a state of being. And not in some spiritual douchey way. It's in the way that anyone you cannot identify is considered anonymous, like the unknown author of a quote. When people call themselves anonymous, they're using it in the literal term. Of course as soon as people know who you are you loose the "prestige" of being anonymous.

OT: This is not hacking... these are just script kiddies running programs from home. Attacking major corporations without using a proxy is pretty dumb....

Exactly what I was going to say, but better worded than I would have managed. Congratulations!Actually, I'll got to dictionary.com to explain it:"of unknown name; whose name is withheld: an anonymous author."That's it. Not a cyber-terrorist group, not a faintly malevolent group of people in favour of freedom of speech on the internet. Anyone and everyone is anonymous. Enjoy it!

Pro-anonymous as in not being subject to identification for everything I do online, against those who abuse said anonymity to cause damage to other people

Echo136:Its my personal belief that they are getting exactly what they deserve. The whole anonymous thing is bullshit.

Maybe. That doesn't mean the treatment of Assange and Wikileaks was any less bullshit. Governments and individuals need to learn to reign in their reactions a little better. If Assange didn't have to do the mainstream medias' job for them, it wouldn't have been an issue to begin with.

Braedan:Though I've never posted on 4chan it still kinda irritates me that NO ONE understands what "anonymous" is. It's not a group, or a team of hackers. It's a state of being. And not in some spiritual douchey way. It's in the way that anyone you cannot identify is considered anonymous, like the unknown author of a quote. When people call themselves anonymous, they're using it in the literal term. Of course as soon as people know who you are you loose the "prestige" of being anonymous.

Until they capitalize it, right? I mean, Anonymous is an all volunteer mob, essentially, and like any mob, it has to have organizers or it just mills about destroying indiscriminately.

Whatever else you might say about these DDoS attacks, you can't say they were indiscriminate.

Azaraxzealot:and people said that you cant police the internet?HA! justice is served!they should be thankful they are not getting Crackdown justice on their asses. imagine that wont you?

It's less "policing the internet" and more "being dumb enough to not run through at least a few proxies before you DDoS someone". And then, as everyone who has played Uplink knows, it's probably a good idea to clean up the logs of said proxies at some point.

Braedan:Though I've never posted on 4chan it still kinda irritates me that NO ONE understands what "anonymous" is. It's not a group, or a team of hackers. It's a state of being. And not in some spiritual douchey way. It's in the way that anyone you cannot identify is considered anonymous, like the unknown author of a quote. When people call themselves anonymous, they're using it in the literal term. Of course as soon as people know who you are you loose the "prestige" of being anonymous.

Until they capitalize it, right? I mean, Anonymous is an all volunteer mob, essentially, and like any mob, it has to have organizers or it just mills about destroying indiscriminately.

Whatever else you might say about these DDoS attacks, you can't say they were indiscriminate.

Except, you see, it DOESN'T have organizers. And it DOES just mill about destroying indiscriminately. Anyone who feels like it just logs onto 4chan, posts a "hey we should totally do this, you guys in?" thread, and if they're lucky, Anonymous has just struck again. It's a bunch of almost entirely unrelated events and people using the same name. It seems to follow a pattern because most of the posts end up under the fuck off that's stupid reply, and only the motivated ones go anywhere.

Azaraxzealot:and people said that you cant police the internet?HA! justice is served!they should be thankful they are not getting Crackdown justice on their asses. imagine that wont you?

It's less "policing the internet" and more "being dumb enough to run through at least a few proxies before you DDoS someone". And then, as everyone who has played Uplink knows, it's probably a good idea to clean up the logs of said proxies at some point.

Agreed. If I run into a police station naked, they didn't catch me streaking, I would just be a retard.

I am a fan of anything robin hood, but everything I hear about Anonymous amounts to a bunch of petty bs.It's about the same as Robin and his men putting potholes in the roads through Sherwood Forest in their part against Prince John's taxation acts.If you really believe in something, and want to do something, don't penny ante your actions. If you are too afraid of the consequences of getting caught, then you don't truly believe in what you are doing. Better to just quit and find something worth doing with your life.This goes the same for Assange. "Oh, lookee what I found out, let's share it with everybody because it is the right thing to do!"It isn't the right thing to do all the time. There are legitimate reasons corporations and governments keep things secret. Revealing everything can put many people at risk of many repercussions including threat of life. That is not anybody's right to do for it acts against another person's right to privacy and self-preservation.As for those caught, my money is they are in for a long time in small rooms getting grilled by Scotland Yard's finest for more details in the organization outside of anything electronic. I think we can expect a few more arrests to happen and there are already some names being posted on Interpol.The Internet is an information gateway, and can be a valuable tool for anyone seeking to better themselves or those things they believe in. It is not the means for cheap attacks and defacement. Not without a truly legitimate result being looked for that aids those people who can't help themselves.

Azaraxzealot:and people said that you cant police the internet?HA! justice is served!they should be thankful they are not getting Crackdown justice on their asses. imagine that wont you?

It's less "policing the internet" and more "being dumb enough to run through at least a few proxies before you DDoS someone". And then, as everyone who has played Uplink knows, it's probably a good idea to clean up the logs of said proxies at some point.

Something I'm actually curious of. If the traffic you are sending out can cause issue for the targeted website, wouldn't it cause issues for any proxy you are using?

killamanhunter:I say we should have a hacker war! First attacks should be placed on Encyclopedia dramatics and 4chan and move out from there.